


safer on the waves, too dark upon the shore

by kimaracretak



Series: even if daylight's a lifetime away [2]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, on choosing to stand and what it means to move forward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:43:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6946141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kimaracretak/pseuds/kimaracretak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(and I will follow you down / to where the silence is lost and found / beyond the light that shines only inside): Regina's spent time, too much time recently, thinking about what would happen when the curse broke. Spent days feeling the jagged edges of the fracturing curse pressing into her, skin and bone and mind and heart bleeding under a hundred thousand tiny puncture wounds as the curse extracted its final payment. And she's played out a hundred thousand possible endings, seen her death come to her over and over and she welcomed it every time, but it never looked like this. This, which is: Ruby, empty-handed.</p>
<p>Or; The curse breaks, and Ruby and Regina each have a choice</p>
            </blockquote>





	safer on the waves, too dark upon the shore

**Author's Note:**

> title + summary quote from iq, "the province"
> 
> i'm not posting snippets from this AU in order, but this takes place near the beginning of part 3, "the wilderness of stolen things"

"Twenty eight years."

Red — _Ruby_ 's — standing on her porch, because the curse is broken but this woman, who is all black curls and red leather and tiny denim shorts that do nothing to hide too-pale skin shimmering under the sun and the effort of holding together too many lives in one body, is still Ruby. And Regina doesn't know what to do with that.

She's spent time, too much time recently, thinking about what would happen when the curse broke. Spent days feeling the jagged edges of the fracturing curse pressing into her, skin and bone and mind and heart bleeding under a hundred thousand tiny puncture wounds as the curse extracted its final payment. And she's played out a hundred thousand possible endings, seen her death come to her over and over and she welcomed it every time, but it never looked like _this_.

This, which is: Ruby, empty-handed.

This, which is: the two of them, alone.

This, which is: the start of their third lifetime together.

Some part of Regina is dimly aware that it might be a very short third lifetime, at least for her, but Ruby's just _looking_  at her, eyes big and bright and full of the wolf and the waitress and the hunter and Regina can't move, can't speak, can barely _breathe_.

"Twenty eight years," Ruby repeats, and she reaches out a hand, so close that her long lacquered nails nearly brush Regina's cheek as if they weren't standing on the front porch of Regina's house where anyone could see them, could turn up with torches and pitchforks and rope and whatever else they could find, out for Regina's blood and content to spill Ruby's as well just for standing between Regina and the street, even if they didn't know who she had been in the forest.

And it is this, more than anything, that forces Regina's voice back into her throat, makes her say, "Come inside, then," as if it were any of the hundreds of other times under the curse that Mayor Mills had invited Ms Lucas into her home. Ruby, it seems, isn't going to be the one to kill her. The least Regina can do is make sure she's gone, or at least hidden, before the time comes.

Ruby follows her in, shuts the door behind them and Regina's breathing evens out a little bit. Ruby's restless, biting her lip and skimming her fingers along the cut-off edges of her shorts, and Regina can almost see the half-formed sentences of things Ruby wants to say coalescing and dissolving in her mind, clear as anything she could see in her mirrors. "Do you want a drink?" she asks. Knows the answer already, of course — at the heart of everything they're still the queen and the wolf, and alcohol had always been superfluous for them — but it fills the silence.

"No," Ruby says, too fast, and they're still close enough that Regina can see the pale marks of her teeth in her painted lips. "No, Regina, I need to say this, I need to — before —" She, too, knows what's coming for Regina. For them.

"If you're looking for an apology --" Regina starts, and, gods, it's not even a start, not more than the bare minimum she objectively should owe everyone in this town, but Ruby is the only one she thinks might deserve it. The only one she thinks she could try to say _sorry_  to and have it mean anything.

"I'm not." Ruby's fast enough to interrupt her this time, and her hand settles on Regina's cheek, cold and soft and familiar and Regina leans into it a little further than she meant to, because she's going to die before the day is over and this is the closest thing to good she's had in decades and she's going to memorise it first. "Twenty eight years we were cursed, twenty eight years you made yourself the only monster in the world even though that wasn't true and I wanted to say ... thank you."

Twenty eight years and more she's been a monster and all Ruby wants to be to her still is _kind_. She shuts her eyes against Ruby's face, too sweet and too loyal and painted in red brighter than the blood they both used to spill. "You're a fool," she says. "You were a monster in the Enchanted Forest because I made you into one. You were only normal in Storybrooke because I took your wolf."

Ruby's thumb presses against her lips, seals them shut. "No," she says, and her voice is quiet and almost sweet but it's solid and it _bites_  and this is the voice of the wolf who led armies for her even after Regina sent her away. It's enough to make Regina open her eyes. "I was Red and I was Ruby and now I'm both and I'm still choosing you. Do you think they're going to leave me alone just because I wasn't in your bed that last month?"

"So you're here to save your own skin?" It was one of the first things Regina had taught her, after all: how to survive whether you wanted to or not. Ruby had always been better at that one.

"No. Well, yes." Ruby's hand slips from her cheek, traces the line of her neck and skims down her arm until she's tangling her fingers in Regina's and leading her into the living room. Settling herself on the couch, bracketing Regina's legs with her knees and looking up at her as if they were back in the forest and she were still a general awaiting her orders. "I'm here to save both of us."

Ruby looks small like this, Regina used to her _feeling_  taller even though her heels usually meant they were of a height, and despite everything she still feels some affection for her. Brave and stupid with it, with a heart she seemed determined to make big enough for the both of them, and Regina's reminded of their first years together when the stories they wrote never seemed to have an ending in sight. "How do you propose to do that? Because Ms. Swan seems to have decided to embrace her role as Saviour."

Ruby rolls her eyes, and Regina remembers that she and Emma had managed to forge something like a friendship before the curse broke. "Yeah, but she doesn't like the whole storybook, fate thing. She likes choices. I'm choosing you, and I want you to choose u -- to choose having a future. Emma won't let them kill you."

_To choose us_ , she had almost said. The last time Regina had chosen _them_  they had started a war she had grown to love so much that didn't know how to stop. The last time she had refused to choose _them_  she had cast the Dark Curse. Each time she had thought she was choosing the future she wanted, the one that would make her happy. Maybe it was time to try again.

Carefully, she lowers herself down until she's kneeling on the couch between Ruby's legs, leans forward until their foreheads are pressed together. Ruby smells like the night air, like chocolate. "Futures don't tend to work out very well for me," she says regretfully.

Ruby's eyelashes brush Regina's cheek as she blinks. "Third time's the charm?" she offers, and earns herself a small laugh. It's the first time Regina's laughed since ... she can't remember. Since Emma came to town, maybe.

"You know that's a bullshit saying, right?" This close she can't see Ruby's eyes, but she can imagine the amusement in them anyway.

"Yeah," Ruby says, and Regina feels her shoulders shrug under her hands. "But we were good together, even if we're never gonna be good the way they want us to, and that has to count for something, don't you think?"

Regina's not nearly as sure, but the doorbell rings before she can say so. "I think we're going to find out."

"So what do you say?" Ruby pushes her back just far enough to meet her eyes. "Do you think — can we — I want to try. With you."

_It's too soon_ , Regina thinks, everything's happening too fast. She's barely adjusting to the fact that Ruby's still here, doesn't hate her. There's so much more they should say, and she feels the old familiar longing rise up inside her again: the urge to push everyone away, banish the crowd on her porch somewhere deep in the woods, send Ruby somewhere, anywhere _else_ , so she has time to think.

Instead, she whispers _yes_  so quickly that she surprises herself, leans forward again and kisses Ruby so thoroughly that the answer's lost in Ruby's small moan, in the feeling of her bottom lip caught between Regina's own.

It's not enough, but it's enough to get them through the next ten minutes.


End file.
